


The Last Gift

by furloughday



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-05
Updated: 2011-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furloughday/pseuds/furloughday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin uses magic to stop time to deliver presents to everyone in the castle. Cold-day fluff, warm fire mulled wine, should be getting home, but baby it's cold outside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Gift

**Author's Note:**

> written for [Merry_Merthur 2010](http://community.livejournal.com/merry-merthur) for colour_me_troll.

Merlin was yawning by four o‘clock in the afternoon on his way to the stables, just as the last curve of November sun was pinking out behind the forest. He thought that, if time hadn't stopped completely, it was at least going slow as honey today and it really couldn’t be bedtime soon enough.

Some days were like that at the castle. Some days no users of magic entered under the guise of something they were not, all affectation of goodwill with a half-cocked story to tell the king. Some days no one enchanted Arthur or attacked Merlin, no one dragged down the dream of magic that Merlin was trying to examine and make rational and hang out to dry.

No, instead some days were downright boring in the best ways possible: a bucket to retrieve here and a piece of pie to pinch there, and a long day that ended in his yawning his way back to the little pallet in the far tower, right after shelving that last pile of Arthur's warm and freshly laundered clothing.

Some days Merlin found himself at loose ends.

He met Arthur by the stable door, somehow arriving just as he was needed, and he stood back while Arthur dismounted and handed him the reins. He walked Hengroen in through the wide doors while Arthur gave final directions to his men.

The horse clopped into its stall and let go the spitty bit from between its teeth with little fuss. Merlin was folding the halter nicely over a hook when there came a slush of footsteps behind him.

“You don’t have to follow me in,” Merlin said. He didn't look up, but the footsteps had ceased at the entrance to the stall, and it was most likely Arthur waiting, obscured by the horse.

Merlin was cold through and through, goosebumps pricking up even at his elbows of all places, and neckerchief doing little to protect appointed area. The muttering of squires and other knights floated back and forth and past him through the quiet darkness of the stables, along with the fresh scent of iced hay and the scritch of Arthur’s boots in the mud beside him. He said: “You don’t need to oversee everything I do.”

“Of course I do,” Arthur told him. “Think of it as your master checking over your work.”

Merlin moved to heft and hang the saddle on the wall, then, and the saddle blanket over a leather horn.

"I'll need to move practice to midday rather than two," Arthur thought to him out loud. "Sir Hayden was an unfortunate shade of blueberry by the end of drills today."

"I saw actually," Merlin said, because Sir Hayden had stumbled past, looking chilled. He picked up the tack box and held it limply in a hand and Arthur stamped his feet, impatient with cold, sweat cooling and hair matted. Merlin frowned.

"Sir Leon even looked a bit frosty by the end of patrol."

Merlin was at a loss as to what to do with the brushes, now that he was holding one, an unfamiliar tool in his right hand. He smoothed down a horse's flank with his left for something to do while he thought. He’d watched some squires do this once, so had been able to replicate it with his magic, like it had photographic rather than muscle memory. It had just happened from that point on, brushes brushing down the horse while Merlin hunched over it to look like he was working, the magic expended to do the task barely a twinge at the back of his mind.

Arthur stood with his hands behind his back, staring into the middle distance.

Merlin scrubbed at the horse's matted back with a fervor and smiled half at Arthur. He tried what he normally did when he was in the tightest spots, and fell back on bald honesty.

“I’ve never actually done this,” he admitted.

Arthur laughed.

But it was true!

Merlin had always been a distractible lad, the type who had been given all-encompassing goals rather than specific tasks to complete during the day in rural Ealdor. Herd the cows slowly back to pasture, Merlin, rather than Bring me a bucket of milk, Merlin. Darling would you please hang the washing and weed the garden, rather than Merlin, mend this chair and baste this chicken. That’s why life at Camelot seemed so different.

It wasn’t the standing at attention or tending to extravagant furs, it came down to the base way of things, how he was tethered now to one other person’s life and made to do things then and there, specific and quickly. Given the situation, it became clear that finishing even one of said duties was effectively impossible without some sort of outside aid, and so Merlin, whose heart, if not attention span, was in the right place, went about making it so in the most natural and non-fuss way possible: he used magic. It was this way with the saddle and curry comb, it was this way with Arthur's boots and with the charred detritus after the hearth had been used for a week without cleaning.

When he finally kicked open the stable door and moved aside to let Arthur pass him, the evening light was blue and the ground muddy and crystalled. His lungs protested the frigid air. Arthur stepped on ahead like he owned the very ground and Merlin followed, skirting shallow puddles and wondering what sort of fare he could hassle out of the kitchens. Arthur loved most in this world two foods: grapes and chicken. Merlin would try to get extra of both to make up for his secret lack of equestrian know-how.

The evening outside shone winter down around like it was in the air, and Arthur’s jacket looked purple along with the crude wood of the shantytown. They raced each other across the evening courtyard and up the main stair at lung-straining speed, and Arthur got there just a leap before him.

He swung the door open with a fierce grip of the handle and shove, and then yanked Merlin by the back of the jacket to fling him inside, inertia working with them, the guards standing at stiff attention just inside the entry so that they caught the tail end of this scuffle. At the sight of the guards, Arthur adjusted his pace to a meaningful stride, the show of immaturity allowed in Merlin's presence alone.

“Indulgent,” Merlin chided, but then Arthur was running up the next flight of stairs, this one inside the castle so blooming with heat that it was pleasant to push through.

When Merlin reached the rooms, Arthur had already entered and kicked off his boots in the antechamber, and was shoving aside a stack of parchment to make room for the pitcher of mulled wine that was sure to arrive shortly, the guards having doubtless notified a passing servant of the prince‘s return.

“Fire, Merlin,” Arthur ordered.

“In a moment, sire,” Merlin said, because he was hanging his wetted jacket over a chair back and rubbing some feeling back into his hands. Magic stung on frozen fingers, like a jump of static on dry skin.

He gathered the logs, bark scratching at the numbed pain in his fingers. When he sensed Arthur turning away as he always did, as if he knew, Merlin lit the flames with a flash, the logs reflecting the gold of his eyes, rather than vice verse.

“If there’s one thing that can be said of you,” Arthur told him. “You’re skilled in starting fires.”

“If there’s one thing that can be said for you-” Merlin returned. “-sire. It’s that you’re skilled at giving compliments.”

Arthur came up to stand beside him, and leaned both elbows against the mantle. He hung his head down to look into the flames as he warmed, sighing at Merlin's general lack of etiquette. Merlin straightened to lean in the opposite direction, shoulder blades to mantelpiece and knees warming at the back. He wrapped his arms around his front, hands in his armpits and shivered once all over.

“Your behavior has been lackadaisical as of late, absolutely deleterious,” Arthur told him quietly, some time later. When Merlin lolled his head to the side, Arthur‘s eyes were closed and a small smile lurked around the soft corners of his mouth.

"I'm dying of a chill. It's warmer up here. My tower's downright freezing."

"Shoddy excuse for-"

The wine arrived then, the serving boy entering on a knock, through the antechamber and into the current one. He laid the tray on the table, and bowed out, eyes flicking to Merlin more than once - Merlin who was, to all intents and purposes, relaxing like an equal beside the prince and not jumping to retrieve the wine. The door clicked shut and Merlin turned so that he could warm his front.

“Lackadaisical,” Arthur laughed. “What did I tell you?”

He shoved Merlin in the side, saying, “Go.“ with a grasp at the cloth at Merlin's waist and gentle push, and Merlin walked backwards to the table, saying, “Thank you for explaining, sire, I didn’t want to have to look that up.”

“You are the very definition,” Arthur told him. “of lackadaisical. And so many other words.”

“Words, words, words,” Merlin said. He returned to press a goblet into Arthur’s pale hands and said, uselessly, “Drink.”

“You’d best drink as well. I don’t doubt that you’ll beg off your duties at the smallest cold.”

“When have I ever taken time off!”

He went to retrieve the second goblet anyway from a cupboard that he had once hid in. In fact, he had been inside of and under and on top of most of the furniture in Arthur’s chambers.

“Quiescent,” Arthur continued. “There’s another one for you. Throw out the rug.”

Merlin did and they sat in the furs, leaning with their backs against the legs of a heavy chair. Merlin’s shins heated through the cloth in his trousers, which were so threadbare as to allow for the heat off the fire just as quickly as the winter chill.

“I require your services here all evening,” Arthur told him, frowning at how Merlin was still rubbing his hands together.

“Of course you do,” Merlin said.

When he woke the next morning he was slumped against the side of the wooden chair, but at least he could feel his feet.

 

*

 

“Would you mind delivering a small parcel to Arthur?”

The air in Gwen’s house was frigid. Their every breath became visible in the rays of frosty sunlight which fell in through the single window and at the cracks in the unfinished walls. Merlin liked to believe that a prince would look past these rough details to the values one so impoverished embodied. Merlin knew that Arthur did and that he would subsequently try to make Gwen forget it all by giving her chambers of her own in the castle, curtain-hung and satin-sheeted.

“Oh you will, Merlin," Gwen said. "Tell me you will.”

“Of course I will, Gwen.” He took the bundle from her hands and wanted to know what it was, but he didn’t ask and Gwen didn’t offer up the information. The parcel felt hard in his hands, though, and almost sharp. Something metal, then.

When Arthur was being bossy or jumping with anticipation. he seemed just himself, some guy Merlin had to spend a lot of time with. He was a bit trying at times but was not without heart or ideals, so wasn‘t all that horrible to work for. But when it came to gift-giving, Arthur became the prince again and was therefore nearly impossible to impress. Merlin was glad, for once, not to be in Gwen’s position.

“He’ll love anything you give him,” Merlin told her.

"Do you think so?"

“Gwen,” he gave her a look.

“Are you giving him anything?”

"D'you think I should?" Merlin asked. "At home I’m rather good at presents - a new chair, a bag of dried fruit. But Arthur, well. Arthur's got everything."

“Perhaps Arthur would enjoy something simple like that.” Gwen looked uncertain.

“Gwen, he’ll love it,” he told her again. “Whatever it is.”

Holiday time was busy for everyone it was true, but this year seemed especially unfortunate.

Among other tasks, Merlin was also scheduled to clean Gaius' leech tank and deliver a load of medicinal tinctures. Arthur came up with the bizarre idea that he might need not one, but all of his jackets, within the next week, so ordered them aired out before the Christmas feast. Finally, that morning five gifts were put in his trust.

“Why me?” he asked Gaius.

“Perhaps you seem dependable,” Gaius said, although he didn’t seem to believe it.

All this would take about twice as long now that Merlin was avoiding the entire side of the castle where Morgana's chambers could be found, so it was almost lunch when Merlin really started panicking about whether or not he would finish for the day. It was one thing to slack off on chores, but when people were depending on him to deliver things it seemed a different matter entirely.

He lined the gifts on the tabletop, and tried to remember which gift was meant for who. Many of the servants did not know how to read or write, so had told Merlin rather than written it on the gift. Merlin stared at them and pushed both hands through his hair, as if grabbing his brain could help him recall what had been told to him quickly in passing.

The starburst of worry was enough to turn reality to a sort of gently oozing syrup.

There was a faltering of the light, and the murmuring of the outside world slowed to a halt, until the only sound he could hear was his own panicked breathing. Merlin noticed this change of pace immediately and with a sick feeling of relief.

He had said it once and he’d say it again: without magic who was he? Not to use it seemed ludicrous, like the opposite of breathing. He understood the idea of moderation, but not the necessity. It was something natural, something lucky, a real godsend, and it had detrimental effects on the development of this work-ethic.

The few times this had happened before, this freezing of time, the effects had lasted for a few minutes maybe, or a few seconds. This time, however, he had some feeling in his gut, some sureness, that this was more permanent. He gathered the presents under an arm, and jogged down the halls even so, even though he expected he could walk easy now because time would wait to catch up to him when the task had been done.

His gait didn’t even falter as he outran two guards who had been racing off down the hall ahead of him. As he leaped into the chilly sunshine of the courtyard, he thought, I am free! I am invincible! I've got all the time in the world!

He passed everyone by with the easiest of steps.

Compared with the raw power Merlin had channeled through himself in times previous, to control lightning and to fell men with a thought, or the magic that he felt enter him in the presence of crystals that left him with a head aching for days - compared to all that, this was nothing. This seemed harmless and a means of getting things done, and when Merlin was done, time would probably cough back into life, and would leave none the wiser.

He reached the market, and began dispersing the gifts and notes with a bounce in his step and a floaty sensation of traversing the grounds of an unreal world. Every move he made was loud against the stark quiet of doors mid-slam and dogs mid-pant.

He placed a tonic bottle on the cart of the woman who provided Gaius with a good part of his dried herbs, those which Merlin couldn't readily find in the forest. He tucked a note under the edge of the bottle, and then was off to track down the woman who had come in complaining of a horrid cough the day before. She, too, was gifted anonymously.

Merlin passed out of the upper town and into the lower, the short slope of iced-over rubble just as treacherous to navigate as when the world was animate.

Before he'd left that morning, Gaius had pressed a poultice into his hand and told him to get it speedily to a man in the lower town who had a minor wound which might become infected. It was hours later, and Merlin creaked into the man's home in a guilty fashion, hesitating in the doorway of the cozy shack, and then slouching in to place the bundle on the tabletop with a note. Only later would he consider how strange it would be to wake to find the remedy on the table, especially as the man had been seated just there, frozen in the act of straining a cheesecloth across a frame.

On the way back to the castle proper, Merlin jumped into a snow drift just because he could, but now his trousers were soaked through. He was just veering towards Gaius' lab when he heard it.

So there was, in fact, a noise in this frozen world.

Only it was nearly imperceptible and Merlin only heard it because he was between breaths. The sound came like a faint pattering in the absence of all else.

When he went to the closest door and pressed an ear to it, he ascertained that no, the sound wasn't coming from inside. He went to the end of the hallway and looked round, down a staircase to the floor below, but saw nothing, only an empty foyer and a massive statue of a griffin.

The sound ceased then, and although it left Merlin with a curious niggling at the back of his head, the damp slog of his trousers made for a more immediate issue, and so he shrugged to himself and kept on.

Back in his room, Merlin sat at the edge of his bed and watched his breath push the stuck dust mites in a weak ray of tepid sunlight. He thought that, if this was the space between moments, he could do with more of them.

He hummed, enjoying the idea of a lie in, and removed one boot and then the next. Just as he was feeling a bit pleased at having some sort of free time, just after throwing himself front first onto his bed and reaching for the loose floorboard, he heard outside his door a renewal of Gaius' clinking and then a shout from out the window, echoing up from the town far below. The sound was so sudden he flinched, like the world had rushed in on him once more.

“Merlin! Are you in there!”

Gaius came to knock at the small door.

“Yes,” Merlin said. He slipped his boot back on his foot.

“Haven’t you somewhere to be?”

“Yes, I do.”

Merlin left.

He served lunch to the royal family. This particular one of his duties had been a bit strained at first, how silence would often fall over the room or how he had to stand by as Uther made outrageous comments, only some of them which Arthur disagreed with. He had gotten used to it, though, and really, today this sort of calm meeting seemed rather loud compared to the silence he had experienced earlier that day. The air circulated obtrusively, and he slowly grew acclimated to the rush that was time in motion, as he stood back against a pillar, waiting and invisible.

"I'd like you to wear your circlet at the feast tomorrow,” Uther was saying. “The people must see that you are a symbol of this kingdom and, by extension, all of Albion."

"Yes, father," Arthur said, possibly not listening. He caught Merlin’s eye, and Merlin looked down, but not before quirking an eyebrow.

"And Morgana, how are you feeling today?"

Morgana looked hesitant. Merlin had made a study of her facial tics as of late, had been watching for the rare moments where her mask of sweetness cracked at the edges.

"Fine, my lord," she said. "But have you noted anything-"

"Anything what, Morgana?" The king stabbed a slice of ham with a dainty forchette.

"-anything odd? About the light or the air?"

"Odd? Odd how?" Uther asked.

"There's a queer quality to the day," she said. “I can’t explain it. Kind of cold, or still.”

Merlin watched her from his post, how her eyes took on a distance that had not been there a year before. Not for the first time he wondered if exposure to crystals and potions hadn’t altered Morgana irreversibly, if she had healed completely after she had ingested a strong dose of hemlock.

"It's winter, that's hardly a surprise," Arthur said.

Morgana didn't respond, but all at once her eyes found Merlin. Their gaze clicked and held.

Merlin privately thought of this waiting game as a small slice of heaven, because this couldn't go on for long, something would have to give. Morgana was in and out of Camelot these days. He had followed her through the damp, night forest. Merlin sometimes felt she stood for all those amassed against Uther - Cenred's army and others like it - all of the outside world, the forest so much larger than this little stronghold and likely to swallow the castle whole.

Gwen entered with a tray of root vegetables. Morgana looked pleased while Arthur quickly hid his scowl; he never had been fond of greens. Merlin watched as Arthur accepted a portion of broccoli, and smiled up at Gwen, only to shove it away in favor of a leg of chicken when she stepped back.

And Merlin worried for Gwen's safety, he really did. And for her heart, and for her future. He worried for-

His eyes widened, and he did mental inventory of his person.

He had lost Gwen's gift.

He gasped, and Uther frowned over at him. He shifted further into the shadow of the pillar.

Lost was the wrong word, perhaps. Misplaced it, or even left it somewhere, those were more correct.

He was freed soon enough, but not before he tailed Arthur all the way to the weapons shed, wrestled him into some armor, and tried to memorize a list of new instructions.

"Merlin stop slurping, you've got time," Gaius told him while Merlin shoveled his soup to distraction at their late lunch.

"No, I really haven't," Merlin said. "Arthur's got me attending the practice session this evening, even though it's three hours long and I don't really do much except get dragged out onto the field from time to time to be embarrassed in front of all the men, but before that he has me cleaning all of his shoes and then helping him decide on a holiday gift for Morgana, and then wiping windows of all things."

"You can still eat like a homo sapien, not a beast in one of my annals."

"Do you know how many pairs of boots he has, Gaius?" Merlin clunked his empty bowl on the table with conviction. "Twelve. Twelve pairs. Also, I lost something important to Gwen. Also, I haven't eaten in at least six hours!"

"Nonsense," Gaius said, and chose the most unimportant point to address. "I sent you off with a sandwich not three hours ago, and frankly I'm not sure why you're back so soon. It‘s probably best to begin your chores."

Merlin pushed his empty bowl away.

"Gaius?" he asked. "What gift would you give to someone who has everything?"

"Everything?"

"Yes, everything."

"And who would this person be?"

"Oh, no one." Because the idea of him giving royalty a present...well.

"Indeed," Gaius said dryly. "Well I’d say the best gifts are useful ones. However, for someone who has already got everything, I suppose you'll have to do with a gift that this person would never ask for themselves."

“Doesn’t that mean that they don’t want it, then?”

“Be creative, Merlin,” Gaius occluded. "Now, off with you, there's work you've been assigned. If you're so set on choking, you might as well do it running."

Merlin did not ascribe to this school of thought, but sped off anyway. He had to find the missing gift.

Now that time was running smoothly, the day really was frightfully chilly. He walked down to the town again, cold air cutting briskly against any exposed part of him. He rubbed his hands together until they were red and raw, and his legs were tired from retracing his steps, looking everywhere for the lost gift.

He could have been doing all manner of pressing things, but instead he was quickly using up what hours he had gained earlier in searching for something he had been distracted enough to misplace, something that wasn’t his to lose. He walked quickly down the long road which bisected the town, where he had been just hours before. He knocked at a few doors, and asked if they hadn't seen a flattish thing, wrapped in red cloth, but they all said they hadn't. There was no sign of the gift.

After half an hour of this, he crunched his way back up the road, past groups of men huddled around chess boards, and some youths churning milk. He felt dejected and something of a useless friend, especially knowing that Gwen had doubtless spent a lot of time and effort on whatever it was that was in the package, and that she had depended upon Merlin completely. The windows of houses were shuttered against the cold and merry curls of smoke puffed out of unstable chimneys. Merlin tried to walk only in the pasty sunlight, but it did little to thaw him.

If he had help, if he had any friends other than Gwen, whose gift it was he'd lost, or Arthur, who was the recipient of the gift, and whom Merlin couldn't really call a friend besides, things might have gone quicker. Not for the first time Merlin thought of Gwaine, who would help him in an instant and make light of the situation, or even Lancelot, who he hadn't seen in a year, but heard word from occasionally.

Feeling gloomy, he stopped when he passed a woman who was selling hot cider. She ladled him out a cup from a steaming pot, and shaved a fine powder of cinnamon stick into it as well.

Merlin stood and waited for his cider to cool a bit. The woman hummed a tune to herself.

"If you were to give someone a gift," Merlin asked her suddenly. "How would you decide what to give them?"

"Gift-giving is all about showing that you care," the woman said.

"Right,“ Merlin said. "I really don't know how to-"

"It doesn't need to be big, just big on sentiment. It must be something meaningful to the both of you, of course."

"Meaningful," Merlin tasted the word like something foreign. He sipped at the scalding cider and thought of Gwen’s suggestion that it be something simple, and Gaius' advice that the gift be something Arthur would never get for himself. Paired with this woman's advice, Merlin still couldn't think of anything. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to give Arthur a gift at all, but the idea was interesting to consider.

"Speaking of which," the woman said. "Would you mind delivering a gift for me? It's for my friend Aberforth who works in the castle kitchens."

"I'm the last person you'll want delivering your gifts, believe me," Merlin said. "I've already lost one today."

"Oh, you won't lose this one, I'm sure of it," she said, and handed Merlin the lead to a mangy goat.

"I see," Merlin said. He gave the rope a perfunctory tug, and the goat chewed its cud, unperturbed.

"What a nice lad," the woman said, and Merlin felt he had no choice but to walk with it back to the castle.

As he went, he thought of presents he himself had received which fit the three tenets. There was the neckerchief that Will had given him on the day he‘d left Ealdor, because Merlin had been shivering that early in the morning and didn't have one of his own. There was the magic book that Gaius had given him the first week in Camelot, of course, which had helped him save Arthur’s life numerous times, and he had studied every word. But the most important, perhaps, was the dragon figurine that Merlin kept well-hidden, safe under a loose floorboard in his tower room.

The goat tugged at the rope, and Merlin waited while it ate an apple core that someone had thrown into a snowdrift. Whittling couldn’t be that hard, could it?

 

*

 

Livestock delivered, he was now sharpening a sword with a whetstone, slicking it down the blade again and again while Arthur perched across the room, watching from the corner of his eye and peering out the window in turns. Merlin felt a particular creeping along the back of his neck.

This was another sort of waiting game.

A long while later, a platter of cheese and soft bread arrived from the kitchens, and Arthur came to the table, radiating boredom. He tore bits of it apart in his hands and ate some, but bread had never been his favorite. Merlin, on the other hand, ate bread like the king ate chicken, that is to say gleefully and with intent. He knew that Arthur had noted this, and, as if on cue, Arthur shoved the platter over to him with a pointed dispassion.

Merlin should have put all this off, should have got on with the multitude of chores he had yet to do, but when he was up here, in the little turret which was cozy inside with a lovely view of the bustling, snowy courtyard, he lost all sense of immediacy. He had neglected to clean the stables and hadn't yet found Gwen's gift, and probably had loads of other things to do, but instead of taking leave, Merlin dropped the sword with a clatter to the tabletop to grab for the food. Arthur retrieved the blade with a expression that was pained, but he simply rolled his eyes while Merlin pushed a large chunk of sour dough into his cheek and then reached for more.

Past his chewing, Merlin could hear that steady hum which always echoed up from the courtyard - the voices and human sounds of merchants and messengers, the unsteady racket of cart wheels on wet cobblestones. He had missed these sounds during the few hours when the world had lain still.

He ate freely in non-silence for a few minutes. Arthur pulled out a sheaf of documents to the table to peruse, muttering something about lackadaisical and Merlin, so Merlin seated himself in a chair.

"You'd think you'd never had bread before coming to Camelot," Arthur said after a minute. "The way you wolf it down."

Most people back home ate flat bread or a certain oatmeally porridge, and any cheese produced was usually sold off at the neighboring town because everyone in Ealdor really needed the money. Merlin knew that mentioning the dearth of the stuff would provoke some sort of angry sympathy on Arthur‘s part, which is why Merlin had never mentioned it.

"Never had it honeyed in Ealdor," he said instead, making himself intelligible only with great effort. "You castle folk are spoilt rotten."

He grabbed for some goat's cheese.

Arthur rubbed at his mouth, hiding a smile behind his ungloved hand.

"You really can't say things like that to me, Merlin."

"Who else is going to tell you?" Merlin reasoned. "A king ought to have a good sense of things, I'm only here to help."

“Are you now? Help in the more general sense, then? Because I don’t see any of your chores finished.”

“I’m getting to it,” Merlin said, and thought briefly of that morning when time had been blessedly everlasting.

Merlin wanted this moment to go on forever, thought maybe time would stop now but leave Arthur untouched, and he could just sit and breathe while Arthur did the figures for this month's grain stores.

Seconds later, the scritching of quill to parchment slowed and became a non-sound.

Merlin took a moment to consider Arthur's static form, how time had stopped and left him with a telling look on his face, open in a way he would never usually allow for.

Merlin sighed, and finally stood with a disappointed noise that no one else would hear.

He went into the antechamber and Arthur’s clothing began folding itself in the air. He ordered a broom sweep the floors, especially the corners where Merlin usually left dirt, and deposit it out the window. He then returned to change the sheets on Arthur’s beds, struggling to tug them over the soft mattress, at one point falling entirely over the bed in a manner that would have made Arthur chuckle, but Arthur was dead to the world at the table. Merlin quickly gathered the bundle of old sheets along with some dirty clothing, and left the room.

He passed hallways and stairways of frozen forms, and called to mind a time the year before when the entire castle had fallen into a deep slumber. Upon entering the courtyard with Arthur and seeing all those slumped forms of soldiers and peasants, he had thought they were dead.

Now it was rather frightening as well, being surrounded by those he spoke with daily, yet being completely alone. Their eyes were open and sightless, and Merlin went quickly past. When he had deposited the bedding and clothing on the lower floor, he made directly for the main entry.

There was that sound again, like a faint pattering in the distance, like someone clapping their hands together or beating a rug against the stone wall. He wondered if it wasn’t a leak somewhere, but knew that that wouldn’t be possible. The roof of the castle was four floors up, and besides, everything had stopped but him.

Merlin stopped to listen. Soon the sound faded off, but it took him until he had finished mucking out the stables to put it from his mind.

The rake and one shovel which had been flinging around, scooping soiled hay into a wheelbarrow, dropped to the ground, and Merlin set about laying the last of the fresh hay from a broken up bale with his hands.

Next, he went off to retrieve a set of mail he was meant to shine that afternoon. He entered through the front door, and, avoiding the squires who were frozen into positions of going about their duties, he found the armor and left again as quickly as he could. He went to the stables once more, because it was less strange there, the only living things were the horses, and they were a quiet presence, even when life was running smoothly.

He picked dirt out of the armor in a dusty, empty stall, seated on a bale of hay and feeling taking comfort in hiding, even if it made little difference. The mud had been lodged in the links when Arthur had tumbled in the mud the day before, and had let it dry instead of handing it off to Merlin immediately. Merlin thought that he would have to soak it later.

He considered all of the things he would accomplish if he could learn to control this propensity he had developed to stop time. It felt necessary, it felt not impossible.

He delivered five notes and a bouquet of wild flowers. He thought about the feast the next day, how Christmas in Ealdor was a traditional affair, with holly, wine, and a Yule log. The people of Camelot gathered at the castle or in the pubs around town which were set for the feast, and sang carols that Merlin was just learning the words to.

Merlin thought of what chores he had left, and was pleased to find that he had none. The sheets had been sent to be laundered, rooms had been aired and then the shutters had been closed again, and the waste had been disposed of with all chicken bones and the skeletal remains of grape clusters tossed into the medieval-style incinerator.

He even had time to bathe and change his clothing. He then made it all the way up to Arthur’s chamber once more, passing the frozen people, feeling a bit frightened but also conflicted. Camelot had been plunging into the darkest winter for the past month, and Merlin had managed to stretch the few hours of daylight into nearly ten. He felt like it was early spring, the ground breaking with tentative green, instead of dormant under a blanket of snow just past solstice.

When he entered Arthur’s chambers, Merlin shot the broom a pointed look, and it sprung to attention once again from where it had fallen, lazy, by the cabinet. It swept a final pile and it was deposited into a waste basket. Merlin stood back now in the entryway, noting that this front room was so clean it was suspicious. Surfaces had been dusted and corners had been swept of crumbs. The colored glass of the windows was so clean it stung to look at.

Suddenly, Merlin got a feeling which began at the base of his spine and ran all the way up to the nape of his neck, like a warning. He sprinted to the inner room, and dove for the chair at the table that he had vacated a few hours before.

He made it just in time.

Arthur jerked awake. He stood up immediately.

"Merlin? What's wrong?"

"I-"

Merlin was out of breath. He attempted to straighten up in his chair, tried to smile reassuringly, but this only made Arthur look at him with consternation.

"Did you choke?" Arthur asked. He was frowning and Merlin accepted this out. He nodded pathetically and took a sip from the goblet on the table.

Arthur sat again, now looking bemused. "It's the way you eat," he said. "Like you're half-starved. Try chewing."

"Thank you for the advice, sire."

"Really Merlin, I can think of few more embarrassing ways to go. And haven't you had enough?"

"I'm actually quite hungry," Merlin said. And he was, because he had been jaunting about the castle, working up an appetite.

Arthur screwed up his mouth, and looked at the plate, and then back to Merlin.

"Merlin, the loaf's half-gone," he told him.

"Is it?" Merlin looked at the platter, at the still warm bread. "Oh, right. Well, we shouldn't let this second half go stale I suppose."

"No, by all means," Arthur said. He sat again to look over his papers, but Merlin could tell he was watching him from the corner of his eye with a certain disbelief the entire time Merlin was eating.

Five minutes later, wholly concerned, Arthur dragged Merlin away.

"You'll be sick," he said, and gave him a gift to deliver to Morgana, a whole quiver of arrows and a fine bow of hawthorn that he had carved himself and had sent away to be finished with a tree sap glaze.

“Not you, too,” Merlin groaned.

“Listen, if I don’t give Morgana something for the holidays she’s bound to do something evil,” Arthur said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Merlin muttered. It had only been a month since she’d let loose a skeleton army on Camelot, which, however quickly Arthur and the others seemed to have forgotten, Merlin expected he would remember for quite some time.

“What do you know about evil?” Arthur said. “You weren’t here when I crossed her as a child. She is more subtle than you would imagine.”

Merlin sighed. “But really, Arthur, does she need a weapon?”

“Of course she does. Girls love gifts, Merlin, and you don't just forget to give something to someone you care about. Oh, what do you know about gifts, anyway?”

Judging by Merlin's latest dilemma, it was a fair point.

“Well, Will once left a dead rat on my pillow on my birthday,” he told Arthur, laughing at the disgusting memory but feeling that familiar pang in his chest when he thought of his friend.

“Who’s Will, then?” Arthur sneered. “Your cat?”

Merlin looked at him.

“He was my friend, Arthur,” he said. When Arthur failed to look repentant, he continued, “In Ealdor? He died for us?”

“Oh, right,” Arthur shuffled his papers.

Merlin left soon after, quiver slung over one shoulder. He dulled the tips and loosened the bowstring, because a faulty gift was better than an arrow in the back.

 

*

 

Merlin met a conversation midway down a corridor near the pantries. Time had stopped hours ago and had only just resumed, the sound swelling up around him without warning, so that he had to stop for a moment and catch his breath.

"Of course he won't mind," he heard Gwen say.

"But he always seems in a rush."

Merlin followed the sound of voices to a cracked door.

"Merlin just has long legs," Gwen was explaining. "He has loads of time, don't you worry."

He peered inside and saw her speaking with a servant whose name he had forgotten. He tapped at the door.

"Merlin!" Gwen looked pleased at his arrival.

"Hello, there," he said to them both.

"Would you mind? I mean, could you-" the girl offered something to Merlin, something wrapped in cloth and a piece of twine. "If you wouldn't mind, I mean."

"Of course Merlin doesn't mind," Gwen said, pointedly.

"Sure, I mean-" Merlin said.

"Oh you're wonderful!!"

"Isn't he?" Gwen said, smiling at Merlin like she was a proud older sister. Merlin played his role well, and frowned like he was a petulant younger brother.

The girl rushed off.

"Gwen," Merlin said. "I've got loads to do."

"Why you're always taking things back and forth as it is! How could one more thing hurt."

"Yes," he said. "For Arthur. Just as you do for Morgana."

"No I don't, Merlin. That's what the other servants are for! You know this."

Merlin did not know this.

“Have you been sending them all my way?" he asked. "Those girls earlier who wanted me to deliver packages to their friends if I had the chance?”

“Only some people. Everyone’s so busy, Merlin,” she explained. “And you’ve really got a very open schedule by comparison. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“I suppose I do,” Merlin said. He had seen how hard everyone worked, and with his magic he really couldn’t complain.

“Oh you’re the best!”

"Alright then," Merlin said, a little pouty, because he was kind of tired, and this really did explain a lot.

"I've got to see to Morgana," Gwen told him. She hesitated for a moment, and then pressed a kiss onto his cheek before moving to the hallway. "You're sweet, Merlin."

Merlin clutched yet another parcel in his hands, feeling forlorn.

He went to speak to Gaius about it, but the man was snippy, pressed as he was sending off tonics to all those who were exhibiting pre-pneumatic symptoms.

On seeing him, Gaius immediately ordered Merlin to deliver a parcel to the steward, placing an ornate box of bone into his hands because he knew Merlin would say yes, as well as a sac of jars and salves. Merlin put the box in the pocket of his saggy trousers and then wandered the halls a bit and wasn’t surprised at all when time slowed to a halt, that lazy bastard.

 

*

 

The castle really was more manageable when he had hours instead of minutes. It was when he was on his way to his room to lie down, perhaps do a bit of reading, when he overheard something peculiar. It was the sound he had heard time and again, something he had put from his mind because it hadn’t seemed important in lieu of all of the other things he had to look into.

There was the pattering again. It was definitely footsteps, he could be sure of it now, and they were coming closer.

He peered around the corner just barely, on instinct, because life had been quiet for nearly a week, and they were due for another terror. A figure was just rounding into the corridor, and Merlin ducked away quickly, heart pounding at what he‘d seen.

It was Morgana. He threw back the corner of a tapestry and slipped behind it into the alcove it covered just as she rounded the corner. Merlin’s heart beat loudly in the still world. He felt panicked, but took the smallest breaths as he could, replaying how he had narrowly escaped being caught out.

He was able to see out the crack where tapestry met wall, mainly because Morgana seemed to think, as he had, that she was the only person animate. She passed close by where he stood, peering around down the hallway and into a nearby room.

When she found no one, she came out again to continue down in the direction of the meeting hall. It was as if she was searching for someone in specific, and at this thought it became clear what Merlin had done. He had, however inadvertently, left the castle open to treason.

Morgana could do whatever she pleased so long as time lay still. The castle was like a sleeping thing under her feet, and Merlin imagined she would unbalance it soon if she could, removing bits of it with her bare hands, if she had to, stone by stone.

Merlin stepped out from behind the wall carpet and turned to watch her disappear down the next hallway, feeling that same burn of confusion and anger that accompanied all thoughts of her. He heard a click and knew that she had entered her chambers.

Instead of fleeing like he wanted to, to be anywhere other than where he was just then, he found a chair and propped it carefully against the wall. He clambered up to peer through the grating that looked in on the antechamber, in hopes that he would see something telling.

It was a frightening prospect, this being watched. As Merlin looked on, Morgana went directly to the armoir and took a mirror from its place in her top drawer. She breathed upon its surface and stared into it. Merlin stood there while Morgana held the mirror in both hands, as if waiting. What was it? What was she doing?

They waited for a long time.

 

*

 

Uther, he grappled out of his chair and dragged him in an ungainly fashion to the floor beside the royal bed.

"Safe here, sire," Merlin explained, on the off chance that Uther could, in fact, hear him. In which case Merlin was very dead already, but at least his actions were somewhat explained.

He threw some sheets below the bed, and added some pillows and then rolled Uther under it where Merlin himself had hidden once, where Morgana had hung the mandrake. This achieved, he stood back to look from all angles, trying to catch sight of the king, tugging at the bed skirts and arranging a chest in the right position so as to hide the king entirely.

At long last, Merlin stepped back and looked around at the apparently empty room, hands on his hips and a feeling of momentarily relief warming in his chest.

Satisfied, he dusted off his hands and smiled. Perfect.

But on the way back up the long hall that led from the king's wing of rooms to Arthur's own, the sound of pattering could be heard once more. It came on sudden and swift, and if Merlin hadn't been so pleased with himself, protecting the king he kind of disliked more than most people, and protecting Arthur in doing so-

The footfalls were nearly upon him. Merlin trembled where he stood, watching the corner. He swiveled his head around, looking for a hiding spot he normally could find in a quick fix, but the walls were straight and flat, the light bright through the windows, no column or alcoves where he might duck into.

Time was frozen and Morgana would be there in seconds. He had to start time again. He had to find a way, he -

Merlin’s mind caught on to this and held, and he did the only thing he could think of.

He froze.

The footsteps rounded the corner, he could tell by the way the echoes changed, and then they slowed as they neared where he stood.

He stayed completely still, as still as he had ever been, all the while begging whatever part of him controlled the flux of time to choose now to restart the world. He wondered, not for the first time, how he had not made efforts to divine the counter spell to this freezing of time, if one such spell did exist, instead taking the it-will-happen-when-it-happens easy way out.

"Curious," Morgana said, and Merlin managed not to flinch. She stopped close to him, and leaned in, perhaps examining his face. At least he had closed his eyes.

There was no way she could know. Merlin wanted for all the world to give one, full shudder, because it was freezing even in the castle halls, and he was brimming with adrenaline. He thought up a plan of attack, realizing all the weapons he had was his mainly-reliable magic and his intermittently brilliant brain.

It was at this moment that he was struck by another idea.

The two were alone in the long hallway, no other person to show the passage or stopped quality of time. Merlin could, then, pretend that time had come unstuck, and Morgana would not, at least for another minute, notice that nothing had changed.

Morgana moved on abruptly before he could make any decision. He stayed completely still until her footsteps had faded, after which he allowed himself only briefly to collapse, before following her.

He tailed her down two corridors and up one flight of stairs. When he saw where she was headed, he veered off and took up a post in the upper corridor that looked down into the chapel. From that vantage point he could see the stain-glass walk and Morgana clutching the hands of Morgause. Merlin hunched down, and listened.

“I don’t understand it, sister,” Morgause was saying. “The world stopped and the king is gone missing. I don‘t understand it.”

“Nor do I. It bears all the signs of magic.”

"We have long suspected there was a mole inside of Camelot, and it seems this one is working against us, siding with the king."

“Why then we might capture the royal advisers and the court physician one by one, so that when the King returns it is to an empty court. If we find this person along the way, we shall deal with that as it comes.”

“Who’s to say how long the enchantment may last? For it is indeed an enchantment, there is no doubt in my mind.”

“But how is this possible?”

“You and I both know that Camelot’s very walls are riddled with magic. But who could it be? Such power could not have gone without notice.”

Merlin considered stopping the both of them in some magical fallout, but if they couldn’t find the king, and he stuck by Arthur, it might be best to leave this one. He had learned his lesson, it all seemed clear now. He would just respark time and after that would make sure that he didn’t wish too ardently for an extra hour to do work, because this was what happened. He would never complain again.

These were his quick and panicked thoughts as he closed his eyes tightly, and wished for time to resume. He pushed out faint tendrils of magic, but all that happened was Morgause gave a faint gasp, and said, “What was that! Sister!” and Morgana said, “I felt it as well.”

Merlin sighed. Nothing ever went well, did it?

He sat by to listen in on the rest of their creepy conversation. Deciding now was the time, he pulled out his small blade and lump of wood, and began whittling.

 

*

 

When Morgause finally said her goodbyes, Merlin sped off to Arthur's to protect the prince, leaving a pile of curled wood for some maid to wonder at later on. He heard the sound again, the sound of his impending discovery, and saw that he had not quite run fast enough.

Would he never be rid of her? The clacking of heels to flagstone made as if to head Merlin off before he could reach the wooden door which meant solace and perhaps a dresser to hide in until time became unstoppered once more.

He outright sprinted down the hallway, soft on his toes and breathing in an adrenaline rush that brought tears of panic to his eyes. The worst that could happen if she were to catch him involved questions he would not be able to answer, and Morgana exposing him, unaffected as he was by powerful magic, and Merlin being beheaded or possibly burnt at the stake, thus catalyzing the downfall of the crown and entire kingdom.

He reached Arthur's chamber door on a skid, just when he thought the footsteps might round the corner. He wrenched at the handle, then remembered that the door pushed the other direction and near fell inward in his haste. He clicked it closed with an exaggerated softness, on a held breath, latch snapping into place.

He leaped across the entry room and frenzied into the chamber where Arthur was positioned just as Merlin had left him, standing near the table, reaching for the grapes or possibly his goblet of still-warm cider.

Merlin had never honestly felt he needed protection, not when they'd faced the Afanc way back when, not when they'd been confronted by undead skeletons and the castle was crumbling around them. Not ever, not until now, when this treacherous game had put Merlin's heart on the wire.

He was having horrid flashbacks to games of hide-and-seek in the blip of a town that he had grown up in, how the blind panic of the hunt had sent him diving into pig troughs and hay bushels alike, just to avoid that moment of being caught, of being grabbed from behind or being seen, which had seemed like the worst occurrence in the world.

Now, with Morgana’s footsteps falling ominous and slow, closer and closer, Merlin succumbed to cowardice, and slid into the space between Arthur and the table, using him as a human shield.

Careful footsteps clicked into the antechamber.

And, now that he was safe, to Merlin's intense and bone-shaking relief, time sped up.

"Merlin," Arthur breathed against his face.

"Adjusting your collar, sire," Merlin muttered. He belatedly gripped Arthur's shirts as an alibi and tried not to tremble with the stress of the situation.

He could feel Arthur's breath on his cheek, smelled the sweet tang of cider, and Arthur, never unbalanced and constantly compensating, shifted his feet and drew out of the grape-lunge in order to evolve to this new configuration of bodies.

"Weren't you on the other side of the room?" Arthur asked him, speaking so close that his nose brushed Merlin's on the exhale.

"No," Merlin said. It was a lie and also the truth.

He searched Arthur's surprised eyes, silently begging for credence.

The internal door clicked open, and Arthur looked but Merlin didn't, out of horror and relief. Instead, he examined Arthur's jaw from up close, his smallish ears and the soft forward-brush of his hair. He ignored Morgana's very presence, while Arthur said, "Morgana," which was greeting enough for the both of them.

Even so, Merlin tensed and Arthur must have felt it, because then he put a hand casually to Merlin's shoulder, a staying motion.

"Am I interrupting something?" Morgana asked.

"That's just Merlin," Arthur told her. "Surprisingly attentive to the state of my jackets."

Merlin fussed a bit demonstratively at the fabric, and Arthur slid the hand down Merlin's arm, arresting the flutter.

"What can I do for you?"

"It's nothing," Morgana said.

"Out with it, Morgana, what do you want?"

Morgana flicked her eyes momentarily to Merlin, where he stood to all intents and purposes encircled in Arthur's arms, one hand still gripping at the soft cotton of Arthur's tunic.

"I wanted a word with Merlin, but it can wait."

"Aren't we a little old for secrets?"

"Secrets?" Morgana batted her eyelashes, and Merlin finally looked her way to downright glare at her over Arthur's shoulder while his head was turned.

"Yes, secrets. Forcing the likes of Merlin to run about, sneaking gifts for the knight that's caught your fancy - you know, youth-type antics that might keep Merlin from his work in the stables."

"Oh, you take the fun out of everything," Morgana said. "I'm sure you don't require Merlin attend you all day."

Merlin silently pleaded with him to say no, as if Arthur didn’t always give in to her eventually.

"Alright," Arthur said. "Lord knows your flirtation with the entirety of the populous raises morale. I'll send Merlin by this evening."

"Raises morale? Is that all I'm good for?" Morgana chided. "Well, pleased you think I'm useful."

The hand that held Merlin seemed the only thing restraining him. Morgana turned just as she was closing the door behind her. "Oh and Arthur?"

"Yes?"

"Has anything seemed odd today?"

"Still on about this?"

"I'm not sure, I just have a feeling."

Morgana's eyes looked momentarily haunted.

"Oh you and your feelings," Arthur said. "But now that you mention it, Merlin here-” Merlin tensed and leaned back against the table. "Has done a frightfully decent scrub-down of my chambers. I can see the floor for the first time in months, so yeah, I'd call that pretty odd."

“How terribly mundane, Arthur," Morgana said. "I’ll leave you two to it.” She smiled a smile that twisted when Arthur looked down at the table grain. Merlin caught it though. "See you soon, Merlin."

The latch clicked back into place. He stared at it, sagging a bit, relief rushing like tea energy straight through him and leaving him heady.

So used to Arthur's manhandling was he, that he barely noticed Arthur placing one bare hand on either side of him at the table's edge, bracketing Merlin in against the wood, saying, "Where were we?" It took his mind a moment to catch up, and by then Arthur was opening his mouth against the smooth of Merlin's neck, and Merlin went warm all up his front despite the winter's chill that was all pervasive.

But before he could even respond, appropriately or in-, there came another rapping at the wood of the door.

Arthur growled loudly and close to Merlin's ear, "What now, who is it?" and Merlin shoved him away with a splayed hand to the chest, whining, "You're always shouting," and Arthur gave him an unimpressed look before stepping away to receive a missive from the hand of Harlois who was now standing in the threshold.

"Hm," Arthur said. He didn't read the note, instead favoring Merlin with a considering look. "Have you noticed..."

Merlin waited.

"...but no."

"Arthur?"

Arthur made an abortive gesture with his left hand, and Merlin gripped the table edge behind him.

"Get going," Arthur finally said. "Check that Sir Leon has completed drills before it falls dark. It will be impossible to train in an hour."

"It's been unseasonably bright today," Merlin countered, because today was chilly, but as far as he was concerned it had been sunny for well over ten hours, rather than the three.

Arthur frowned at him, as if to say _You're wrong_ , and also _you're blatantly ignoring the fact that I was pressing you against a table just then_.

"I've got a meeting with my father's advisers," was all he said aloud, and Merlin took this as a dismissal. Arthur never required his services at the meeting with advisers, not since that time Merlin had waved at him during a meeting, and the consequences which had followed.

He backed away and out of the room, a hand itching to touch his neck, just there, with Arthur looking on all the while.

Merlin’s whole life seemed to be a back and forth between the castle and the town. He went down to the practice field in a dream state, the crunch of his boots against the frosty grass a constant in an otherwise confusing world.

He narrowly avoided a group of charging knights. When he reached Sir Leon and asked about the status of the men and how drills were going, the conversation instantly turned on its head.

"Arthur sent me to tell you to finish training before dark."

"We're nearly finished here."

"Alright then, I don't see why he thought you wouldn't be," Merlin said. He secretly suspected that Arthur wanted to get rid of him, but couldn't, in good conscience, let him go without direction.

“I’ve seen how you look at him," Sir Leon said, a propos of very little.

Now, Leon was a serious man, one who was constant and brave, and whom Merlin looked on as something of a friend. So to have the man confront him in such a way, with a calm assurance, a tone that left no room for doubt, Merlin shifted on his feet at the shame of it.

“Please don’t tell him,” he said.

He felt Sir Leon’s gaze like a heavy thing, appraising. If Arthur were to hear it from his most trusted knight, captain of the guard, well…it would ruin everything.

“Don’t tell him?” Sir Leon said. His breath puffed out, icy in the epic air of noontime. "Don't tell him?" He called over to the group of knights. “Do you hear that, Sir Pellinor, Sir Hayden. Don’t tell him, he says!”

A few men looked up.

“You are nothing if not honorable,” Sir Leon told him.

“Pardon?”

“Look at those men, Merlin.“ Merlin scrunched up his brow and pursed his lips and flicked a quick look to the watching knights. “Look at them.“

“I’m looking,” he said.

“It is the life goal of each and every one of those men,” Sir Leon said. “That our Prince and Lord see how we feel about him.”

“Wha-”

“It is the thought that wakes us at the wee hours of the morning to start patrol, it is the thought that lulls us to sleep each night. It is this thought that drives us to the ends of the earth should Arthur so wish it, and the thought which haunts these halls when we are asleep. That he should know our faith in him and feel it undivided until the end of his immortal days.”

“Oh!!” Merlin said. “Oh! You think I’m faithful to him. Oh yeah, that. Fine, yes, very good.”

“It is that fidelity!” Sir Leon bellowed, and at this there rose a rabble of calls of assent and concurrence. “It is that pure promise of allegiance! Which you, humble servant, seek to hide, so good is your heart! So pure your intentions! So willing are you to suffer the flames and the winters, however hot or cold (respectively) they might be!”

“Really, that’s quite nice of you to say, but,” Merlin attempted to step back and away from the spotlight, but Sir Leon was not finished, and the other men were drawing near, drawn like fire to the wick by the intractable fervor of his impassioned words.

“O, Merlin!” he cried in a literary-device sort of way.

“Yes?”

“You are so just.”

“Um.” Merlin said, because here was something he felt definitively was not true.

He had been doing some thinking lately, and he saw that he would pretty much stick by Arthur, despite possible wrongs he was doing. He knew Arthur’s heart to be in the right place, thought him the closest to an embodiment of ideals of all the men Merlin had ever met. But Merlin wouldn’t go so far as to call himself ‘just.’ No, he was the opposite, killing anyone who threatened Arthur’s life and suffering minimal grief for it.

“You, Merlin,” Sir Leon said, and Merlin was nearly thumped two feet into the ground by the pat of comradery at his shoulder. “You are nothing, if not honorable. Nothing if not a perfect image of a faithful servant to the crown. You would do anything-”

“Well, not anything-” Merlin shrugged.

“-to ensure his perfect happiness-”

“Within reason!”

“-so do not hide this, as if it is something to feel embarrassment for or something shameful,” Sir Leon seemed to have returned to his main point. Merlin was reeling with the amount of words that the normally terse man had thrown at him, most of them flattering, only some of them true.

“I can’t help but feel you’ve got it a bit wrong, but let’s agree to disagree,” Merlin said. But then the others began to pipe in.

“I see you carry my liege‘s armor all over the castle grounds, how it shines like silver, without complaint,” one knight said. “My squire, on the other hand, is a whiny boy of fifteen years who can barely get a grass-stain off my plate mail.”

“Ah,” Merlin began.

“You do a lot of heavy lifting,” Sir Owain told him, thumping him on the arm like Merlin was another knight, when he really, really wasn‘t. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed. Even though you‘re, frankly, very tiny, and it pains me to watch.”

“Well, it’s not all bad,” Merlin said.

"You always carry Arthur back after banquets."

Merlin had magic to thank for that one.

"You haven't even taken time off to go to town and get more than one outfit!"

"I can buy clothing?" Merlin asked.

“You’re the best of confidants,” said a knight he had never seen before.

"You put up with rooming with and doing chores for Gaius."

"Not that he's a bad chap, but...he always seemed a bit touched in the head, old age perhaps."

"Yes, you haven't gone back to your kingdom, despite everything. Instead, you've stayed on to be Arthur's servant where you are weekly imperiled by those who seek to strike the crown-"

"-even when a bat shit insane dragon unleashed itself upon the castle."

“Ok, I’d better be going now. Arthur, ah-” he said. “Arthur needs…something. Goodbye.”

He scurried off, and the last thing he heard was someone declaring, “You see? Always thinking of the prince.”

“Good man, good man.”

 

*

 

He arrived with the afternoon snack just past the hour, and Arthur gave him a chicken leg and forced Merlin to partake in the hot cider that tasted faintly of burnt apples because Merlin had underestimated the power of his heating spell.

"Kitchens don't usually mess this one up," Arthur sighed, and drank deeply of his goblet, looking morose.

Merlin was on edge and his pulse was rocketing all over the place.

"You're looking twitchy," Arthur observed.

He waved a conceding gesture at the silver platter that was loaded with sticky buns, even though Merlin hadn't asked and didn't necessarily want to intoxicate himself with sugar. He sat heavily, wincing at how he had just sat on the lump of formed wood in his pocket, and shifting to take a roll anyway, prying it from the knotted braid of pastry with a delicate forefinger to thumb picking motion.

"I'll need my dogs walked as well as my cape laundered. There's a footprint on it from where you were following too closely behind me," Arthur said, which was an outright lie because it had been the wind which had blown the cape in a surprising billow, and it had caught around Merlin's person in a sweep of suffocating fabric. That is why it had been trampled upon, and Arthur knew it, the git.

He thought darkly how Arthur could well afford to be against magic because he didn't need it; being royalty, he simply waved his hand at whatever he wished for and it was done.

Merlin thought of this, and considered the dredges of cinnamon and nutmeg in the bottom of his glass at a close distance, nose in his cup.

Arthur snorted and kicked at Merlin's ankle from under the table, and when Merlin looked up he found Arthur's gaze, and it was sure, and open, and unwavering.

 

*

 

Merlin failed to stop stopping time. The day was about twice as long as it should have been, or at least that’s how tired he felt.

The next two times time shifted into a standstill, he sprinted to Uther’s chambers and moved the man so that no sorceress could come to reap her revenge. But on the third time, which lasted only fifteen minutes besides, he could find no trace of Uther. He realized the man could be any number of places, out of the castle or inside of it, in one of a hundred rooms. He realized he would have to leave it up to some sort of fate. He was too tired for this.

He spent an hour seated at Gaius' work bench, whittling, but arrived at Arthur’s chambers only a second later as far as the general populous was concerned, carrying the evening meal on a flat tray.

He took up his place by the door and then Arthur's body went soft and his other foot fell from where it had been raised mid-step, and Merlin looked at his own feet and waited for his breathing to slow.

The crackling sound of the fire filled in for what had been an eerie silence, and Merlin's heart slowed as well, calmed and his stomach growled.

"Oh sit down, Merlin,” Arthur said immediately. “I'll not be held accountable for a servant who's too distractable to feed himself."

“Distractible!” Merlin exclaimed, but then proved Arthur’s point a bit by heading back into the outer room, tray still in hand, to check that the window was fully closed.

Merlin finally placed the tray at the table and then reached for a chunk of bread, mind humming, _bread, mh, delicious, love me some bread_. He slathered it with warmed butter and dipped it in a bowl of still-hot soup, thermodynamics just as affected by the time-freeze as the rest of life even though it was two hours later, no wonder Merlin was half-starved.

He listened to Arthur moving about the room, picking things up only to replace them crooked, haphazard, and he felt a warm flood in his chest as he drank soup and his body warmed as the fire thawed him out.

"Hang on a moment," Arthur finally said. Merlin looked up, his hand shoved shamelessly deep in the bowl of Mercian-harvested nuts. "Something strange is going on here. I could have sworn I was working on a deposition a moment ago, but now…”

Merlin had organized those documents the last time he'd been in the room, had rolled them without thinking of the continuity issues and had put them in a drawer.

"Scrolls?" he asked.

Arthur looked perturbed at his own forgetfulness. Merlin thought of Morgana and perhaps Morgause lying in wait, and thought of how Merlin’s very presence was possibly keeping Arthur alive, and he tried not to feel guilty for lying once again.

"You are getting on in your years-"

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur told him. "Anyhow, I'll need you here late."

Merlin appreciated this game, how Arthur cared that Merlin's rooms were frigid and allowed him to curl up in front of the fire under the guise of working late. But tonight Merlin was on edge. He'd been awake for far too long and knew that, somewhere in the castle, another plot was afoot. Also, there was no way he would finish his gift in time if he didn't use what time he had. He wished once again that he had figured out how to harness the power to stop time, so that it was less unwieldy and more directed, so that he could stop time so he could take a short nap. However, he somehow never managed to work out the more straightforward bits of magic, so this would have to do.

“I’d really better go, Arthur,” Merlin said. “I have, I have things I need to get done-”

“Oh, right,” Arthur said. “I told Morgana I’d send you by.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t forget,” Arthur said, sounding like he had decided against feeling crestfallen. Merlin felt a tug in the chest region at the implication, but really he was just extremely exhausted and couldn’t be held accountable for anything he said or felt.

"I've really got to go, Arthur," he said again.

He stood, and the warmth left him almost immediately when he moved away from the fire. There was really no other place he would rather accidentally fall asleep, but he had to go.

Arthur gave him an unreadable look, and nodded once.

"At least be useful and help me dress," he said.

So Merlin went to the cupboard, and laid nightclothes out onto the bed. He moved in to help Arthur out of his jacket and then stripped him of his tunic, fingers brushing Arthur along the sides and once at the neck, little moments that Merlin accidentally catalogued to later hold up to the light.

He didn't go to Morgana's, because that would be some sort of suicide. When he got back to his small tower room, his knees were knocking it was so cold. He magicked his pallet to lay out over by the small hearthfire, only stalling to figure out how to squeeze the mattress through the tiny door. Gaius stirred in the darkness, and Merlin created a small light under his covers to see by as he continued his rough whittling. He fell asleep almost immediately.

 

*

 

The next morning felt like a continuation of his dream.

He must have willed it in his sleep, because the world was still. It could be felt in the way the light came in cold through the small window, like a gauze over air, before-thunderstorm flat. Merlin poked his head out the door just to be sure, and saw that the halls were completely silent, not a sound, a pause in time.

Well-rested now, Merlin was pleased at the extra minutes. He ducked back into his room to do a bit of early-morning whittling.

Time was a series of starts and stops. Merlin had never thought of it until then, but now that he was mucking around with it, it was apparent, how it was all fluid until he stopped it and then it began again. The Sidhe and others, who knew how many, lived at a different pace, humans moving sluggish and dumb to their eyes. It was all pretty relative, and it mucked about with Merlin’s head. He doubted if he would ever experience time in the same way again.

After a while, he left Gaius’ chambers with a feeling of success that came with having achieved something so early in the morning. The figurine was done. It was … meaningful, he hoped, a figure of a unicorn, to mark the time Arthur had saved his kingdom through a show of valor and humility. It was simple, it was something Arthur would never have thought to ask for himself.

It was…rather ugly.

Merlin’s head felt clear anyhow, the untethered feeling of a stopped world, his movements too fast, as if he was stalking ahead instead of taking careful steps.

But as he neared the kitchens, the faint murmur of activity made itself heard. A feeling of unease coiled suddenly in his stomach.

When he shoved open the door to the kitchens, the front room was a hot bustle of activity. General servants had joined kitchen staff and were busy at a multitude of culinary endeavors: rolling giant barrels to a stove and emptying them into pots to make mulled wine, shelling and crushing almonds for the marzipan paste, and creaming milk for the puffs of chantilly on pastries.

“Oh no,” he breathed.

“Merlin,” a man said ominously. “Arthur’s breakfast’s near gone cold. After you take this ask if he can send you down, we need all the help we can get.”

Merlin took the plates and kicked the door closed behind him. Oh no, oh no.

He slumped against the wall for a moment, thinking that of course the halls had been quiet that morning, quiet enough that he could mistake the lack of activity for a pause in time. All servants were down here preparing for the Christmas feast!

It was probably nearing ten o’clock, and Arthur was going to be furious.

He ducked a tin cup that went wide anyways. It clanged and dented against the wall, and Merlin stood, adjusting his neck flap.

“Right, we’ve got meat meat and more meat," he said. "Any more meat I can get you?”

He ducked a pillow, which had, unlike the cup, actually been aimed at his head. Arthur’d only attempted to maim with pillows since Merlin had made it clear that punching was not an exchange of friendly affection.

“Can you really not manage to get out of bed until I arrive?” Merlin had often wondered, and today was the day he asked it aloud.

“I don’t see a reason to leave bed," Arthur growled. "If I haven’t got my breakfast, Merlin, I can’t start my day.”

“I was, um, held up. In the kitchens,” Merlin lied.

“You‘ll be needed in the kitchens today, as it is,” Arthur told him. "I hope they have you carrying something heavy. No get out."

*

There was nothing to say about the kitchens, except that Merlin found, through quite a bit of concentration and wishful thinking, he could stall the stalling of time, and over the long, surprisingly warm day, there was only a minor blip, an extra hour where he sat and sipped slowly an entire bucket of water and completely redid an entire sheet of quiche that he had managed to burn. He also picked up the apples he had knocked over and magicked a table leg back on.

Good grief.

 

*

 

He tried to get back to his room that afternoon, but at the door he heard an unmistakably private conversation.

"Are you quite sure, sire?"

"It is as I told you, physician. I was seated at my desk one moment and then I awoke under my bed. Not once, but thrice."

No, Merlin wasn't needed here at all. He tugged the door shut once more, softly, silently, and then he fled.

 

*

He entered Arthur’s rooms in the evening with a gift under his arm that Leonard in the kitchens had asked him to take down to the pub, since Merlin would be making a run down there before the feast anyhow.

He went to stoke the fire, and then came to stand by the table, where Arthur was still poring over documents.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said.

“If it’s another missive from my father, tell him that I can come speak to him in person if it’s so important, on Christmas eve of all times. Or at the banquet, even.”

“It’s not from your father, it’s-” Merlin drew himself up straight, tightening his fingers around the wrapped object in his pocket. “It’s from me.”

Arthur’s eyes softened.

“Gwen told me a gift should be simple," Merlin stammered. "And Gaius said that a person who had everything should be given something they would never ask for themselves -"

“A bit like you, then,” Arthur pointed out.

"- and an old woman selling cider told me it should be meaningful - stop smiling that way -"

“Merlin,” Arthur said. He touched Merlin at the shoulder.

"I mean, it’s not much. I just made it, is all, and thought perhaps-”

“Merlin,“ Arthur said again. “I’ve already opened it.”

This drew Merlin up short. He slipped his hand into his pocket again and felt the figurine, which was definitely still there.

“What?”

Arthur went to his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out what appeared to be some piece of armor, perhaps a shoulder plate. When Arthur drew nearer once again, Merlin could see that Arthur's name had been etched into it. It gleamed in the firelight.

At once, Merlin knew that this was the gift he had been searching for for an entire day.

“You left it on my table," Arthur told him. "I thought I had made it clear that I liked it."

This was elucidating, to say the least.

“Arthur," Merlin began, but Arthur went on, a careful nonchalance to his words.

“I don’t make it a habit of buying gifts for servants, but you have been through a lot of battles this year, and you did drag me out of the way when I was shot by Cenred’s men in the forest, and on my quest which you were verbally asked not to follow me on at least thrice by myself and others, well, your allegiance, such as it is, wouldn’t allow you to stay away. I suppose that does warrant a gift.”

“Arthur-” Merlin stepped towards him, and felt the entire wrongness of the situation drop over him.

Arthur took him by the shoulder and smiled into his face and said: “And yes, the little things. How you make the effort to warm my clothing before you dress me, and how you pretend not to watch out for me when I spar with the knights, even though there‘s nothing you could do for me were I injured.“

“I could!“

“Could you?“

“Well, probably not,“ Merlin admitted. He was, after all, quite bad at healing, magical or otherwise.

“So,” Arthur continued. “I took the liberty of sending your mother a load of supplies for the winter. Ealdor not being in our lands, I wasn’t provided a list of what their needs were, but I made a pretty good guess of it,” he laughed. “Food there was rather rotten, if you know what I mean, so I sent a bit of everything.”

“Arthur-” Merlin said. He was taken aback, and somewhat uncomfortable, because: “Arthur, that parcel was from Gwen.”

“Gwen,” Arthur repeated.

“Yes," Merlin said. "Um, sorry about that.”

Arthur looked at the gift once more, and then said. “Armor- Oh, right.”

There came a knock at the door, like providence.

“Ah, Guinevere,” Arthur said. She peered into the room.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but I was hoping I could speak with you."

Merlin shuffled back a bit.

“Thank you for the gift,” Arthur said to her.

“That’s quite alright, sire,” she said, smiling something secretive.

“I’ll go deliver this then, shall I?” Merlin said, feeling something like resignation settle. He took the gift he had to deliver and made a run for it, past Arthur and past Gwen in the doorway.

He should have thought this through, how of course Arthur didn't need silly things he had made, and even if he had accepted the wooden figure, he wouldn't have seen it for anything other than what it physically was, a strange reworking of a unicorn out of common oak wood.

“Merlin!” It was Gwen. He stopped, even though he wanted to get down to the pub quickly so that he could get out of the snow for good tonight, and maybe get into bed and flip through the magical book to look for a spell interesting enough to take his mind off of his current situation. He waited for her to catch up with him.

“Merlin, where are you going?”

“I’ve got to take this down to the pub.” He waved the package demonstratively.

"Take it down to the pub yourself? But why? What about delegation!"

"Dele-" Merlin asked.

"Oh Merlin," Gwen told him. She looked at him with fondness absolutely glowing on her face, and of course he couldn't be angry with her. "It's no wonder that you look so overworked. You've got to delegate."

"Well, I certainly won't be able to find anyone to take this down to the lower town tonight."

Gwen sighed, and squeezed his arm.

"Hurry back, Merlin. We‘re late as it is."

He took the front steps. He nearly slipped down them, covered as they were by a thin layer of black ice, and he had to grasp onto the head of a gargoyle to regain his footing. He was reminded of Arthur's brief time with that fool Cedric, the thief, and how the statues had come to life that night. He scowled as he unhanded the lizard.

He leaped down into the courtyard, and jogged down the thin path that knights had shoveled out of the layer of snow. He ran past a final straggler carrying a woven basket up the path to the castle, a kitchen maid who had made the hot chocolate. She greeted him as they passed and seemed surprised that Merlin recognized her, although he didn't, of course, know her name. There was never any time for that.

His feet crunched in the snow, and he went as quickly as he could, the air freezing his face. For the first time in a long while he missed his home. He knew without a doubt that it was frightfully cold in Ealdor. The little valley got the brunt of storms, as well as minor floods in the springtime when the snows thawed and ran fresh down the slopes into the main road of their village, but winter always meant sitting inside with the whole lot of them, drinking hot drinks and talking through the night.

The tolling of the bells rang out across the black sky and vacant town, dropping notes like the specks of snow that floated on the empty air. Merlin heard them from down the path, which was encrusted with a cracked mess of ice and sleet that was seeping through the tear in the soul of his left boot, among other places

It seemed a shame to be out in the cold while others were gathered in one of the town pubs or the main halls in the castle, which had been laid with straw and loaded up with platters of rabbit and boar, steaming and miles away. When he passed the Rising Sun, Merlin slowed and then went in, the door an easy pull to open, an eager revelation of the warmth within.

He hadn't counted the bells, the time must have been only seven o'clock at night, but it got dark so early this time of year Merlin felt it had been night forever. But coming in here, into a room lit to the corners by candles and filled to the point of brimming over with townspeople, soused to the point of loud merry-making, warmed Merlin in all places.

He felt a tug of resignation, however, when he realized he hadn't thought to put a few coins in his pocket before leaving the castle. He rarely used money on his own, only when Gaius wanted for something found in the market. All he had was the small parcel that was meant for Arthur.

"Are you drinking something?" came a growly voice of the innkeeper.

“No, I’ve got a package from your nephew I believe? And I was sent from the castle to pick up the certain port, I was told you’d know the one.”

“Ah, yes,” the man said. He ducked under the rough bar and came back up holding a dark bottle. “Don’t drink it yourself, boy.”

Merlin shook his head. He was jostled from behind while he stood blowing on his hands to try to thaw them. The idea of walking all the way back to the castle seemed impossible.

He caught himself thinking that he might briefly go sit in the corner and join a group of people, but while sitting without a drink in hand and no one to talk to would go over fine some days - he was no stranger to wanting for money - it would be downright depressing tonight, when where he wanted to be most was at the castle, even if he couldn’t imagine facing Arthur now, even if he only wanted to go to his own pallet in the far tower.

"Young man," a voice came. "Can I buy you a Christmas drink?"

He turned. A woman was waving him to a chair.

"No," he said, wanting to sit down, but instead he held the bottle to his chest. “Thank you though.”

The woman considered him.

“You look like you’ve got somewhere you’d like to be,” she told him. Merlin put his hand to his pocket once more, where he felt the useless present he had worked at.

“Tell me,“ he said. “How can I be sure-”

“You just know," she said to him, because it was probably obvious from his face what he was talking about. People could always tell.

Merlin nodded.

"Merry Christmas, my dear,” the woman said. “Now go.”

"Merry Christmas," he said.

He left through the door. Now the bite of cold air was like a catalyst, and his throat felt cold at the harsh act of breathing it in. Snow had begun to float down, and Merlin tugged the collar of his jacket a little tighter. He passed a few people in the streets, and exchanged greetings as they passed.

He started slowly up the long incline to the castle, and it wasn't quick, but it was something.

He still missed his mother and all the people he hadn’t seen properly for years. It was just cold nights like these, he thought, which led him to reconsider staying for a destiny. Maybe he could go back to Ealdor where, although he was different, he was the same as anyone in all ways that mattered.

He trudged up the path, clutching the bottle to his chest and feeling lousy. There came the distant sounds of caroling and he could have sworn the snow fell thicker the more he felt sorry for himself. Returning to the castle seemed a dangerous idea, for more reasons than one.

Merlin stopped. There came another noise now, perhaps a voice. It sounded distant, almost empty or gentle, but now that Merlin kept an ear out for it, he could pick out the questioning tone over the muffled drone of bawdy drinking songs, over the creak and slam of a distant door, and over his own shallow intakes of breath.

Merlin squinted uselessly up the dark, torchlit path to the castle. He was walking now, because his lungs hurt. No one was there. He pressed at a cramp in his side.

He resumed his wallowing. He had to get it out of his system, there was no question that he was staying, he just -

He rubbed snowflakes from his eyelashes with numb fingers, and when he looked up, far ahead, he saw a small figure appear at the portcullis, the unmistakable figure of Arthur in a jacket and boots, cast in grey and white tones in the moonlight.

"Arthur."

The name came out with a puff of frosty air, too quiet.

Arthur disappeared again, back over the drawbridge, and Merlin took off at a run before he had time to think of doing so. The snow crushed like a fine powder under his boots and he was thoroughly soaked from the ankle-down. There was a good chance he would slip and fall on his face. The thin air did nothing to slow him down, but this seemed like some race against time, Arthur walking away and Merlin too slow and plodding to reach him.

"Arthur!" he shouted. When he reached the drawbridge he nearly tripped over a wooden board and time hiccoughed long enough for him to right himself mid-hitch and then it sped again and he was through, through the archway and out into the bright night courtyard. "Arthur!"

Arthur was blued in moonlight and just mounting the steps, and he turned at the call, Merlin's voice made more frantic by the echoes that flung around the curve of the castle's inner walls and then up, out into the starry sky beyond.

"Merlin!"

“Arthur!” It seemed all he was capable of saying now.

“Merlin, you idiot! Where have you been?”

Arthur had stopped in the middle of the path, and was just watching Merlin struggle his way to him. The slight incline was probably to blame. Merlin jogged at a sluggish pace.

“Getting,” Merlin huffed. He held the bottle aloft as he struggled up the path, the liquid sloshing horribly. “Getting alcohol.”

“What in the-” Arthur said. “Merlin get over here! That better not be my present.”

They met in the center of the courtyard, two indistinct figures on a snowy night.


End file.
